All posts tagged Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds arrives at the federal courthouse for the second day of his trial in San Francisco, Tuesday, March 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Federal prosecutors in the Barry Bonds case might not have Greg Anderson — Bonds’s former trainer — to testify.

But that doesn’t mean their cupboard is bare, as was demonstrated on Wednesday with the testimony of the government’s lead-off witness, Steve Hoskins.

Hoskins, described by the LAT as a “family friend who grew up with Bonds,” testified that his concern over Bonds’s health led him to secretly tape Bonds’s trainer with the design of presenting the tape to Bonds’s father, Bobby. Click here for the San Francisco Chronicle story as well.

Hoskins told the jury that Bonds asked him to look into the side-effects of steroids in 1999. Hoskins also said he saw Bonds and his trainer with syringes on several occasions in the early 2000s. Bonds often complained he was sore from steroid injections, Hoskins testified,and he urged . . . Read More »

Barry Bonds arrives at the federal courthouse for the second day of his trial in San Francisco, Tuesday, March 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

The perjury trial of Barry Bonds kicked off in earnest on Tuesday. The early takeaway: while the government got the first chance to fill the jurors’ ears, the first part of the day belonged to the defense.

Why? Mainly because Bonds’s former trainer, Greg Anderson, again told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that he would not testify against Bonds.

“He clearly, and unequivocally, will not testify,” Anderson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said. Shortly thereafter, Illston found Anderson in contempt of court and ordered him jailed once again — this time for the duration of the case. It will be Anderson’s fifth stint in jail for failing to cooperate with prosecutors in the Bonds case. Click here for the USA Today story on the Anderson situation.

“Perhaps the government hoped Anderson would give it a (ninth-inning) ninth walk-off home run in game one,” says Joshua Berman, a former federal prosecutor . . . Read More »

The perjury trial of home-run king Barry Bonds starts on Monday after what feels like a 10-year run-up. (Actually, it’s only been eight: Bonds made the statements at issue in 2003.)

Back then, Bonds testified he never knowingly took steroids, never accepted human growth hormone from a personal trainer and never allowed anyone other than medical personnel to give him injections.

The government contends those statements are false. If convicted, Bonds could face five years or more in federal prison. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story; here for the SF Chroncle story.

Bonds’s case hinges on whether prosecutors can prove the former San Francisco Giants slugger took steroids and that he knew what they were when he was taking them.

It would be extremely hard for me, as a member of a jury, to convict anyone who gave significant service time to the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels during the time I’ve been following them — over three decades. My love of the team simply runs too deep.

Am I proud of that? Absolutely not. It’s embarrassing. But were I in the running to serve on a criminal jury of Darin Erstad or Bobby Grich or “Disco” Dan Ford or Garret Anderson or even, yes, Mark Teixeira, I’d probably tell the judge that I would not be able to serve impartially.

I had this thought when reading this NYT piece a few minutes ago about the job facing San Francisco judge Susan Illston, who will soon have to find 12 jurors (and four alternates) from San Francisco to sit . . . Read More »

But for now the more pressing question in the Bonds situation concerns not Bonds himself, but Bonds’s former trainer, Greg Anderson. To date, Anderson (pictured) has steadfastly refused to testify in the Bonds trial.

With the trial upcoming — it’s slated to start on March 21 — it’s crunch time for Anderson. On Tuesday, the federal judge overseeing the case, Susan Illston, told Anderson . . . Read More »

The most interesting thing to us about the Barry Bonds news out Thursday isn’t the news itself, that federal prosecutors cut the number of felony charges against the former slugger from 11 to five.

Bonds has pleaded not guilty.

Frankly, we were most surprised by the realization that, yes, it looks like this prosecution is actually going to trial next month.

Why does this surprise us? Because we’d mostly forgotten about the whole saga. The case — a perjury prosecution — is heading into its fourth year. (The initial indictment against Bonds came down in 2007, back when he was still posting sick numbers for the San Francisco Giants.)

Since that time, Barry Bonds has melted almost completely out of the public consciousness.

This strikes us as not such good news for the prosecution. Once upon a time, the Bonds case felt like something larger than a simple perjury inquiry. It felt like . . . Read More »

About Law Blog

The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

Must Reads

Plaintiffs' lawyers dodged a bullet last year when the U.S. Supreme Court spared a quarter-century-old precedent that had served as the legal linchpin of the modern investor class-action case. Despite that win, a new report suggests that securities class actions have lost some of their firepower.

In a week in which images of Prophet Muhammad were connected to acts of terror and defiant expressions of freedom, a sculpture of the prophet of Islam inside the U.S. Supreme Court has drawn little notice.

The salacious allegations against Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz that surfaced in a federal lawsuit involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have generated international attention. Drawing less coverage is the lawsuit itself -- a case with the potential to expand the rights of crime victims during federal investigations.